THE NIGERIAN IS ONLY INDEPENDENT THE DAY HE DIES –BY MOSES IDEHO
We love
our Country. But does our country love us? We are born in hospitals without
beds, with angry doctors and nurses owed salaries and underpaid to boot.
Sometimes we are born with the aid of a generating set and at other times a
candle.
We love
our country, but does our country love us? We are told we are not qualified to
go to schools. So with begging bowl in hand, we take to the streets, shackled
like wild animals, sodomized at other times, flogged in the worst of times and
hungry in the best of times. Where we go to school, there are no teachers, no
books, no teaching aids and our schools are worse, sometimes than poultry
sheds.
We love
our country, but does our country love us? Where we survive basic education, there
are no universities to attend. If they are, the lecturers prey on our young
flesh, force us to learn bribery in our adolescent years and make us criminals
even before we grow beards. Where the schools are unavailable, we become
thugs for hire, the Baba Alaye, in
other times they call us Yan Daba, the
children of animals, only sometimes animals even have a better life.
We love
our country, but does our country love us? Getting a job is for who knows who,
those who need it don't get it; those who get it don't need it. Where family
and our wits get us a small startup, SARS (Special Anti Robbery Squad) and the
local extortionists in uniform are on standby to rob us. The Nigerian seems
forged for misfortune only.
We love
our Country, but does our country love us? Today is a celebration of our
independence, but on national tv, our President offers threats rather than
hope, our Army seeks spiritual help, rather than getting to work. We have
increasing foreign reserves and a suffocating debt burden, everywhere you look,
it’s sorrow, bitterness and pain.
We love
our country, but does our country love us? They say it’s independence, but
I think the Nigerian is only independent the day he dies.
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